New study shows unexpected outcome after having 100,000 people complete creativity test: 'This result may be … unsettling'

For a while, creativity has been treated as one of the last traits that clearly separates humans from machines. But according to a report in ScienceDaily, a large-scale study shows that AI is becoming a lot more creative than expected.

Researchers asked more than 100,000 people and several advanced AI systems to complete the same creativity tests, and the results showed that AI is growing more capable. 

What's happening?

Researchers from the University of Montreal compared human creativity with outputs from large language models, including GPT-4, Claude, and Gemini. The study, published in Scientific Reports, found that some AI systems outperformed the average human on specific creativity tasks designed to measure original thinking. The tasks included the Divergent Association Task, which asks participants to list words that are as unrelated as possible. 

"This result may be surprising — even unsettling — but our study also highlights an equally important observation: Even the best AI systems still fall short of the levels reached by the most creative humans," Professor Karim Jerbi told ScienceDaily. 

Why is human creativity important?

Rest assured that while AI beat the average participant, it did not outperform the most creative humans. According to the study, when researchers looked at the top 50% of human performers, people consistently scored higher than every AI model.

When it comes to richer creative tasks such as poetry, storytelling, and narrative writing, humans outshine AI models, which suggests that peak creativity is still human, even as AI improves in its prompt responses. 

Although AI can be used in tandem with humans to create acceptable work, there is a negative tradeoff. The rapid expansion of AI is tightly linked to growing energy, water, and data demands. While AI can help optimize systems such as clean energy and transportation, the competing impacts make the role of AI much more complex. 

What's being done to support human creativity?

The researchers emphasized that AI creativity depends heavily on human guidance (through prompt wording and adjustable settings, for example). It's important to note that Jerbi said AI functions more as a tool shaped by human input than as an independent creator. 

"Generative AI has above all become an extremely powerful tool in the service of human creativity: It will not replace creators, but profoundly transform how they imagine, explore, and create — for those who choose to use it," Jerbi clarified in the report. 

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